‘Hero’ Brit spends eight hours driving up and down fire-ravaged mountain in Rhodes rescuing stranded families in a rental car as he says ‘I don’t really like sunbathing so thought I’d do something useful with my time’
- ** Caught in the wildfires in Greece? Email: [email protected] **
A hero British tourist described apocalyptic scenes ‘like the end of the world’ after he spent eight hours driving across Rhodes to rescue stranded families in a rental car.
Jonathan Lewis, of Attleborough, Norfolk, was on a family holiday on the Greek island as the flames were blown towards the coast, where he was staying.
The transport worker bravely ferried people to safety on Saturday after deciding to take action when smoke began pouring onto the resort from behind a mountain.
Others have told of being forced to sleep in schools, airports and sports centres on Rhodes, while one tourist arrived to hear the hotel she booked had burned down.
Some have vented their frustrations at travel firms for a lack of information about how the wildfires, which began to spread on Saturday, will affect their holiday plans.
Caught in the wildfires in Greece? Email: [email protected]
Jonathan Lewis, of Attleborough, Norfolk, spent eight hours driving across Rhodes to rescue stranded families in a rental car
Transport worker Jonathan Lewis bravely ferried people to safety in Rhodes on Saturday
Bride-to-be Holly Butler and her future husband Dominic Hustler with their families at Rhodes Airport in Greece last night after arriving for their wedding, which takes place on Wednesday
Ms Butler and Mr Hustler are fulfilling their dream of marrying on Rhodes where they became engaged. Their TUI holiday was initially cancelled, but they booked new flights and flew out
British couple Laura and Marc Hall are celebrating their wedding anniversary while on holiday on Rhodes and are due to fly back to the UK on Friday
Holidaymaker Jess Bailey arrived in Rhodes with her husband and two children from Bristol Airport on Saturday night to find hundreds of people in classrooms and stadiums
Marrie Dhillon, 37, her husband Bob and their children Harvey and Myla arrive at Gatwick Airport today after fleeing the wildfires in Rhodes
Alexandra Rosochacka and her partner Mateusz Besztak, both 28, from Waterford in the Republic of Ireland, arrive at Gatwick Airport today after escaping the wildfires in Rhodes
Mr Lewis said: ‘People were saying ‘It’s only a bit of smoke’ and not to worry. But I thought it was more than just a little smoke,’ he said. ‘I’m not much of a fan of sunbathing anyway, so I thought I would see if I could help.’
How are travel firms responding to the Rhodes wildfire crisis?
– easyJet
easyJet announced it would operate repatriation flights to bring home British holidaymakers trapped on Rhodes.
Two rescue flights, an A320 and an A321 aircraft totalling 421 additional seats, will fly from Gatwick on Monday, and a third flight will operate on Tuesday.
Nine flights already operating between Rhodes and the UK will also continue alongside them.
Flights are still operating for customers booked to travel to or from Rhodes before July 29, but if they would like to change their plans, customers can change the date of their flight or request a flight voucher.
– Jet2
Jet2 was the first to announce it had cancelled all flights and holidays due to depart to Rhodes up to and including Sunday July 30.
Aircraft will be flown to Rhodes with no customers onboard, so they can bring customers on the island back to the UK.
The company said it would be contacting customers to arrange refunds or re-bookings.
– Tui
Tui said it had cancelled all flights and holidays to Rhodes up to and including Tuesday July 25, with passengers receiving full refunds.
Those due to travel on Wednesday July 26 can amend to another holiday or cancel free of charge.
It said customers currently in Rhodes will return on their intended flights home.
– Thomas Cook
Thomas Cook announced it had cancelled all holidays to Kiotari and Lardos – the areas of Rhodes most at risk – up to and including Monday July 31, and would be in touch to offer full refunds.
Customers travelling to other parts of the island on July 24 and 25 are being called in departure order to receive a full refund if they wish to cancel their trip.
Those travelling on Wednesday July 26 will be contacted no later than 6am on July 25 to discuss options.
– British Airways
British Airways said it was still operating flights to Rhodes as normal.
However, customers currently on the island needing to come home early can change their return flight free of charge, and anyone travelling out from the UK in the next week can postpone their flight to a later date.
Mr Lewis drove up into the mountains towards Lardos, a village on the south-east of the island. ‘People were just standing in the middle of the road, not having a clue what was going on. It was like a zombie apocalypse,’ he added.
He passed beach bars in flames and families fleeing hotels and bungalows which had caught alight or were smothered in smoke.
Mr Lewis, who had been on the island for a week, picked up a family and dropped them off at a safe hotel on the other side of the mountain.
‘There were no rooms but there were seats, phones, internet and power,’ he said. ‘I saw some people getting their luggage and dropping it as they ran to the beach as the brush at the side caught fire.’
An Austrian tourist ‘burst into tears’ as he picked him up near a spot where a tourist boat had moved close to the shore to pluck people to safety.
‘He told me he had put his wife and children on the boat as he watched it disappear into the smoke that sat on the surface [of the water],’ said Mr Lewis, who described how strong winds fanned the flames.
The Army arrived two hours into his rescue mission but ‘nobody seemed to be in charge’.
‘Buses were stopping and queuing a mile down the road from where all the people were, so I kept weaving through the car parks, getting as many in the car as I could, taking them up the hill and going back,’ he said.
Mr Lewis made six round-trips between 12pm and 8pm. He and his family were evacuated from their hotel at 1am on Sunday and moved to another hotel.
He posted videos of the rescue on Facebook, saying in a caption: ‘I spent my day rescuing families from the fires. I don’t like sunbathing so did something useful. The Army finally arrived and I believe all the people were evacuated.’
Meanwhile a British couple flew to Rhodes for their wedding – despite others describing a ‘living nightmare’ as families are evacuated back to the UK.
Bride-to-be Holly Butler and her future husband Dominic Hustler, from Berkshire, arrived at the airport on the Greek island with their families last night.
The couple are fulfilling their dream of marrying on the island, which is where they became engaged. Although their TUI holiday was initially cancelled because of the wildfires, they booked separate flights so they could marry this Wednesday.
They were among just 52 passengers on the 180-capacity an EasyJet flight from Gatwick Airport on Sunday, as news that tourists were running for their lives emerged. But the couple, both 26, are adamant nothing will halt their big day.
Miss Butler told MailOnline last night: ‘We had to come. We’re getting married on Wednesday. We’ve been planning our wedding for over a year now and nothing will stop us.
‘We were meant to be flying out this morning with Jet2 from Stansted but they called us at 9.30pm on Saturday night to tell us that our flights at 3.30am the following morning were cancelled. My uncle Andy had booked with easyJet.
‘His holiday was cancelled too but he found out the flight was still going. So we ploughed on. Rhodes is a special place for me and Dom. We got engaged here so that’s why we wanted to get married here.’
Joanna Hughes, her husband Jon Hughes and their daughter Emilia, from Murton, County Durham, had to walk four miles to escape the wildfires in Rhodes over the weekend
Smoke billowing in the background of Kiotari village, on the island of Rhodes, today
Flames rise from a wildfire on the island of Rhodes last night as thousands of Britons flee
A wildfire has caused havoc on Rhodes with 19,000 people having so far been evacuated
Miss Butler and Mr Hustler and their relatives were in high spirits as they flew into Rhodes, despite the glowing red of wild-fires blazing through the night were clearly visible from the aircraft windows.
Her uncle Andy Waller told MailOnline: ‘Everyone has done everything to stop this wedding going ahead. Jet2 cancelled Holly’s flights. EasyJet cancelled our holiday.
READ MORE Holiday wildfire hell spreads to Corfu as tourists are evacuated by sea from inferno – as tens of thousands are stranded in evacuation centres on Rhodes as first 14 rescue flights carrying 2,700 leave blazing island
‘But I got on my sister Sue, Holly’s mum, and we all decided to go ahead with it.’
Miss Butler flew into Rhodes with sister Siobhan Butler, father Paddy Butler, mother Sue Butler, uncle Andy Waller and cousin Maddy Waller.
Mr Hustler’s family had arrived on the Greek island days earlier.
EasyJet even alternative flights or a change of date as the passengers waited to board EZY 8231 from Gatwick on Sunday afternoon.
A member of the easyJet ground crew announced: ‘Duty to the situation in Rhodes with the wildfires we are offering any customers the opportunity to delay their flight or change to another location.
‘There are still many fires raging with smoke covering much of the island. So if you would prefer not to travel today that is fine.
‘EasyJet can offer you another destination or another date for your flight to Rhodes.
‘Alternatively EasyJet can offer you a voucher for the value of your flight which you can redeem at another time.’
However defiant holiday makers vowed to plough on with their vacations. One said: ‘We must be real thrill seekers but we’re going ahead regardless.’
Laura and Marc Hall are celebrating their wedding anniversary while on holiday on the island and are due to fly back to the UK on Friday.
Mrs Hall told BBC Breakfast: ‘It’s been a nightmare. On Saturday night we were just having a drink and we knew that other places had been evacuated but we were just told to stand by.
‘There was ash falling in our drinks and we could just see a blaze in the distance and a load of smoke. We were told not to do anything and then all of a sudden we had alarms going off on our phone and the waiter was saying, ‘Standby’, shouting, ‘Mayday, mayday’.
Michael Toole, Lauren Owen and their children Elliot Owen and Willow Toole arrive back in Manchester from Rhodes yesterday
Kathryn Holt, Scarlett Holt and Anthony Holt, pictured at Manchester Airport, were on the first rescue flight to return to the UK yesterday
Tourists wait for departing planes at Rhodes Airport yesterday, after being evacuated
People evacuated from their homes and hotels take shelter at a sports hall in Rhodes
‘So it was just a mad panic. We all started packing. We were just told to wait and we might have to evacuate, so we just stayed in our rooms and at 3am we get a call, we’ve got to go.’
Decision not to refund Rhodes tourists would be ‘unconscionable’
Consumer group Which? has said it it would be ‘unconscionable’ for airlines not to refund tourists who decide against flying to fire-ravaged Rhodes.
The comments by Which? Travel editor Rory Boland came after easyJet confirmed it was operating flights to the Greek island as normal, while fellow travel firms Jet2 and Tui suspended their trips and refunded their customers.
He encouraged more airlines to be ‘flexible’ should customers decide not to travel due to the six-day blaze.
Mr Boland said: ‘It’s likely that those who are due to go to Rhodes now won’t want to go, and given the emergency operations that are taking place on the island, local authorities could probably do without more tourists arriving.
‘While there is no official Foreign Office advice against travel to Rhodes, it would be unconscionable for holiday companies to cash in on travellers’ sensible decision not to travel by not refunding or rebooking them.’
Meanwhile, an expert warned that tourists whose holidays are disrupted by the blaze or those who choose not to travel are ‘unlikely’ to be covered by their travel insurance.
Louise Clark, policy advisor at the Association of British Insurers, said: ‘Travel insurance is primarily to protect you against what can be incredibly high costs of needing emergency medical treatment overseas, but is unlikely to provide cover if you’re unable to go outside on your holiday because of a wildfire.
‘The primary purpose of travel insurance is to cover the costs of emergency medical treatments or repatriation should the worst happen, which can run into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds.
‘It can cover you if you need to cancel or cut short your holiday but it’s likely this will only be under limited circumstances, for example if you or a close family member fall ill, not because of a disinclination to travel.’
Ms Clark added that some insurers provide ‘add-ons’ available to customers at the time they buy their policy which do protect against natural disasters.
They were taken to a basketball stadium and spent the night sleeping on the floor.
Mr Hall said: ‘The only information we’ve had from Tui is an email yesterday to say, ‘Hope you’re enjoying your holiday’. We just want them to be upfront about it.’
Meanwhile holidaymaker Jess Bailey arrived in Rhodes with her husband and two children from Bristol Airport on Saturday night to find hundreds of people in classrooms and stadiums.
She added: ‘It’s quite unbelievable really. We arrived from Bristol, and were evacuated straight to an evacuation centre.
‘There were flights coming in really quite late at night from all over the place and people couldn’t go to their hotels.
‘It was chaos at Rhodes airport last night. Nobody seemed to know what was going on at all. There were hundreds and hundreds of people everywhere. This morning there is nobody from Tui here. Nobody knows what is going on and it is scorchingly hot.’
Tui sent Ms Bailey an email saying: ‘We are closely monitoring the constantly evolving situation and the safety of our customers and TUI teams on the ground is our main priority.’
One British tourist evacuated from Rhodes told how she was left in a car park for four hours in the middle of the night before sleeping on a pool towel in a school gym.
Bryony Hullett, 29, revealed local residents dragged mattresses down the street and cooked meals for holidaymakers waiting to be flown off the wildfire-ravage island.
The content creator from Manchester gave an extraordinary account to MailOnline today of her wait to get off the island with her civil servant husband Dane Hullett, 33.
Mrs Hullett also needed medical assistance for her asthma, saw a ten-year-old boy throw up with heat exhaustion and spent six hours without access to a toilet.
The couple eventually made it back to Birmingham Airport this morning,
Mrs Hullett said she flew out to Rhodes on a flight from Manchester Airport late last Tuesday night, arriving on the island at about 4am the following morning. The couple stayed at the Evi Studios and Apartments in Pefkos, travelling with Tui.
She told MailOnline: ‘We arrived very early Wednesday morning. One the first couple of days we were vaguely aware of the fire. But we were more concerned about the wildlife in Butterfly Valley, and worried it might reach there. It wasn’t presented as an issue for us.
‘By Friday, you could see smoke in the sky blacking out the sun. Ash was starting to fall in the pools. It was distinctly smoky smelling. Friday afternoon there were some power cuts, Saturday all the power and water went out in our hotel, so no toilets, no sinks.’
She said they went to bed early on Saturday evening before being woken up by an emergency alert at 11.30pm, with the instruction to evacuate to Archangelos.
Dane Hullett, 33, and his wife Bryony Hullett, 29, from Manchester, arrive at Birmingham Airport today after being evacuated from their Tui holiday on Rhodes on a flight this morning
But she continued: ‘The hotel managers went home at 5pm and it was just the guests. Everyone came out of their rooms, grouped together at the main entrance. Tui’s advice at the time was just to follow the local authority’s advice, but there was no advice. We were advised to get on any local bus to get out of Pefkos.
Father is £10,000 out of pocket after his family holiday was ruined
A father of two from Kent has said he is £10,000 out of pocket after his family holiday to Greece was ruined by the ongoing wildfires.
Chris Elworthy, 42, a farmer from Faversham, was due to fly with easyJet to Rhodes with his wife Emma, 43, and two children, Thomas, 13, and Charlotte, 11, on Saturday, for a holiday at a private villa in Pefkos – before both bookings were cancelled.
The former Royal Engineers officer said easyJet was ‘not helping at all’ with a voucher or another flight and the villa is ‘refusing’ to provide a refund.
‘We are now £10,000 out of pocket; easyJet is not helping at all with a flight, despite having promised on Twitter that they would provide a voucher or another flight… 24 hours later they have done nothing,’ he told the PA news agency.
‘The villa is refusing to refund us, and the holiday insurance is saying that we’re not covered because we didn’t have the additional natural disaster cover on top of the ordinary cover.’
EasyJet has been contacted for comment.
‘We got on a local bus which took us to a drop-off point at Lindos, which was being evacuated. We were left at this car park for four hours. No water, no food, no toilets. Lots of little children, nowhere to sit. Other buses from other travel companies kept coming and picking up passengers. Everybody was ringing Tui, everybody was standing on their phones everybody got a different story.
‘After four hours a Tui bus came to collect us. There weren’t enough seats, so I was standing. Still no toilets – coming up to six hours with no toilets.’
Mrs Hullett said the group were first taken to a school, although the ‘driver wasn’t clear where we should be going’. However, this was full and they were turned away.
She continued: ‘They took us to another school where we were unloaded, into a gymnasium. Nobody came, they got us in in there and that was it. We were just given shrugs when we were asked what the plan was. That was about 4.30am, 5am, we arrived there.
‘Most people just slept on the floor. I slept on the floor on some tiles with a pool towel. Some people were sleeping on chairs, on desks.’
Mrs Hullett said the air conditioning system was intermittent because there were ongoing blackouts, and therefore every few hours it was turning off.
She added: ‘There was another family there who a ten-year-old son was throwing up with heat exhaustion. Elderly people, toddlers, just crashed out on their suitcases.’
Mrs Hullett said ‘nothing really changed’ throughout yesterday, although representatives from Tui brought bottled water early yesterday morning, which ‘as far as I’m aware that’s the only thing Tui provided for us while we were there’.
She said it was staff at the school who ended up helping the tourists, saying: ‘The teachers at the school rallied the community to come out in droves. They got tables set up and they brought food, sanitary products, whatever they could find.
‘Some of them brought home cooked foods. Some of them dragged mattresses off their beds and down the street for people to sleep on. People were bringing their sofa cushions. The locals were unbelievable – we were absolutely floored by their generosity.
Volunteers offer meals to tourists waiting for departing planes at Rhodes Airport today
‘The local doctor came and said does anyone need medication? There was a man who needed medication that needed to be refrigerated. The locals were phenomenal, I can’t express how much we relied on them because without them I don’t know what we’d have eaten. The locals kept us fed, basically. Some brought lilos for people to sleep on.
‘Traumatic’ experience for woman celebrating honeymoon on Rhodes
A woman celebrating her honeymoon on Rhodes has spoken of her ‘traumatic’ experience after she and her husband were forced to evacuate their hotel on Saturday.
Claire Jones, 36, and her husband Paul, also 36, were evacuated by coach from the Village Rhodes Beach Resort near Lardos.
They were driven to another beach where they were placed on three different boats to escape from the wildfires currently ripping through the Greek island.
‘It was really quite traumatic driving to where we went because you could see everyone fleeing their hotels, and people were walking along the beaches, walking along the roads, and they had babies and small children,’ Ms Jones, from Leicestershire, told the PA news agency.
Before the coaches arrived, Ms Jones recalled: ‘When we got to the car park and you could see the fires getting closer and closer and closer, and the coaches weren’t turning up […] that was really worrying. When we first got on the coach, that was the most scary, because I thought, if that wind blows towards us, that fire is going to hit this coach.’
Ms Jones added she and her husband are ‘very lucky’ as they managed to flee to Faliraki in the north of the island, where they had planned to stay later in their trip.
‘Throughout Sunday we were advised there would be planned power cuts but we didn’t know when. It was three hours or, two hours off, roughly. And when the power went off all the lights went off and the air con went off.’
She said she ended up having to see the doctor for medical assistance yesterday because she is asthmatic. The smoke on Friday and Saturday aggravated her asthma, which – combined with the heat – led to her suffering a dizzy spell.
Mrs Hullett continued: ‘I was certainly not the only one. The doctor came to see me. I think he just came off his own back – the local teachers called him in. It was all provided by the staff of the school.
‘Then about 1am this morning, my husband was replying to some news outlet tweets saying we’re here if there’s anything you’d like to know, and some people called from the BBC.
‘He did a phone interview, and then about 15 seconds after that call he got a ping on his phone saying we’ve booked you onto an emergency flight.
‘The reps on the ground were trying to get information. we were told we could come to the airport and get on a flight. We said if we’re going, we’re taking two of the families with young children from the hall.
‘So they agreed they could come. And there was an elderly couple. We were told to wait in the entrance for a coach. It didn’t come, so we called a local taxi company.’
She said they were told there would be a 5.30am flight to Manchester that they could get on, but once they got to Paphos Airport at about 2am, they were told this flight had already left.
However, there was a flight to Birmingham leaving at 6am which they were booked onto and did leave, finally taking them back to Britain.
Mrs Hullett said: ‘The Tui staff on the flight were fantastic – very aware that the people on the flight had been turfed out of their hotel a few days ago.
‘There was a little bundle on each seat with a blanket, a bottle of water and a snack. We got on the flight, the pilot spoke a little over the intercom just reiterating that he completely understood and he was sorry for the stress that had been caused.
Families have been forced to curl up on the floor of Rhodes Airport overnight
As Mrs Hullet spoke to MailOnline, she was waiting for a taxi provided by Tui which would take the couple back to their home in Manchester.
‘I am surrounded by a forest of charred bushes and trees’: NICK FAGGE reports from a ‘hot as hell’ mountain side in Rhodes
By Nick Fagge in Rhodes for MailOnline
The temperature gauge reads 40 degrees Celsius and it’s hot as hell on a mountain side in Rhodes.
There isn’t a cloud in the sky, just the smell of old fires and a wisp of wood smoke.
I am surrounded by a forest of charred bushes and trees.
Suddenly a gust of hot wind inspires the tinder dry undergrowth to burst into flame.
As a Chinook helicopter, laden with a cargo of seawater to douse the blaze, flies over head, the vicious wildfires that have been ravaging this holiday island, come back to life.
All around the hillside the ash grey and charcoal black forest shimmers in the heat.
The popular seaside resorts of Lindos, Kiotari and Pelki which British holidaymakers flock to in their thousands are just a few miles down the road.
Greek firefighters who have been battling against the fire of nature since last week had hoped they had won.
This morning hoteliers cautiously encouraged their missing guests it was at last safe to take up their empty rooms.
But as the fierce wind breathed new life into the flames, the fight against the devastating wild fires that has devastated much of this popular holiday island and led to the evacuation of some 19,000 people, is far from over.
As I drive with my colleague photographer Tim Clarke, to the nearby hillside town of Laerma – the epicentre of the wildfires – we witness the devastation that nature can wreak on a scorched earth.
Telegraph wires dangle above char-blacked poles that have been burnt like match sticks.
The carcasses of wild deer lie burnt to a crisp by the side of the hot tarmac road.
As we watch the flames come back to life, local volunteers Nikos and Christos Christoforos screech to halt in their blue BMW.
Leaving his car door open father Nikos grabs a fire extinguisher and tries to put the new flames out.
His son Christos follows suit, trying to cut down the few remaining shrubs that have not gone up in smoke.
But as soon as they put out one flame, a gust of hot wind reignites another.
‘This is where our family come from,’ Christos explains. ‘We live in Rhodes Town now but I have come back with my dad to save whatever we can.’
A few kilometres up the road, residents of the village of Laerma have started to return home.
The village had been evacuated on Saturday as the fires threatened to destroy everything in site.
Their neighbours in Lardos at the bottom of the hill had pulled together to support them, providing shelter, food, water and hope.
Here firefighters do not pay for their pastries at the bakery or coffee at the cafes.
But as the bright ochre flames once more begin to dance around the few remaining trees on the outskirts of Laerma, some fear they may have returned too soon.
‘We have had forest fires before,’ villager Naktaios Tharinakis explained.
‘There were big fires in 1987 and in 2007, but never as bad as this.
‘This year it is crazy.
‘We had to evacuate the village on Saturday because the fire was getting so close.
‘The fire did not reach the village this time, but I know people who live further into the mountains who have lost their homes.
‘We are used to hot weather here in the summer – 35, 36 degrees Celsius but not 42 or even 45 degrees like it has been. And the wind. It makes everything worse.
‘It fans the flames like a blacksmith’s fire. There is nothing that can stop it.’
The hooting of a four-wheel drive fire engine halts our conversation.
Tired-looking, sooty-faced fire-fighters rush passed.
A copse of blackened trees has burst back into flames within a stones’ throw of the village.
The wildfire refuses to go out.
Reflecting on the experience, she added: ‘It is unprecedented, this level of evacuation of tourists and residents. We perfectly understand, but we felt very abandoned throughout – that was the problem.
‘I’ve got all the patience in the world if there’s a problem and everyone’s trying to resolve it. But if you’re getting shrugs, it’s frustrating.
‘Most people haven’t had a shower since Friday night. At the end of the day, we’ve lost a holiday, but there’s people who’ve lost everything.
‘Some people have lost their homes, businesses, it’s just dreadful. The community spirit for those who were displaced was for the most part really brilliant – they looked after each other. People really did form a bit of a community under pressure, which was really nice to see.’
The Jefferson family have told how hundreds of ‘fire refugees’ flooded into their hotel, the TUI Magic Life Hotel, Plimmiri, when they were forced to evacuate.
And now the stranded family – dad Michael Jefferson, daughters Oliva, 15, and Amelia, 7 and son Oscar 6, from Burconpidsen, near Hull, are planning an epic trains, planes, and automobiles journey via Cyprus and France to get home.
Mr Jefferson said: ‘We came out on holiday on Tuesday. The first two or three days were fine. But on Saturday the electricity was cut as the fires got closer to the hotel.
‘Then hundreds of people from other hotels arrived as they fled from the fires. Our hotel has room for 1,300. But there were 3,000 people stranded there.
‘They were forced to sleep anywhere – on the tennis court, on the sun-beds, in the gardens, everywhere. On Sunday the Tui rep put on us on buses to the airport.
‘But we have been told we don’t have a flight until Tuesday. We’ve been sleeping at the airport since Sunday, so we are going to make our own way home, with help from my brother Neil.
‘We’re going to get a flight to Cyprus, then another flight to Paris and then an Uber to Calais. Neil is driving down from Hull and is going to get the ferry over and pick us up in Calais and take us home.
‘This will certainly be a holiday that we remember. So far the kids are fine, if a bit tired. A lot of people have had it a lot worse.’
Another mother has told of her horror after desperately fleeing her Rhodes hotel with her husband and two children just hours after arriving on the Island as the wildfire raged on.
Mum-of-two Jodie, 32, and husband Matt, 35, had flown out from Manchester but were forced to quickly run for their lives from their hotel in Kiotari, cradling their children before jumping on a boat and abandoning their suitcases on the beach.
They had only arrived at around 1am on Saturday at the Princess Andriana Resort and Spa but within a few hours, experienced a sudden power cut before ‘air raid sirens’ sounded and they were told to ‘run to the sea’.
‘We ran to the beach, dragging our cases and the kids. The smoke was thick and black and the heat was immense. We left the cases after a few steps and the baby’s pram,’ Jodie, originally from Lancashire, said.
‘Out of the smoke a boat then turned up. I had push my daughter through the bars on this boat and then my son. We just wanted our babies to get to safety.
‘They let me on but were shouting it was for women and children only at first. Waiting for Matt nearly tipped me over the edge. We couldn’t breathe and we had towels over our mouths. My daughter was screaming ‘I don’t want to die’.’
Amid scenes of chaos and devastation on the beach, the boat departed and sailed through the thick clouds of smoke before arriving at Lardos Beach in temperatures of 43C.
Moving on foot, the family then managed to catch a bus to nearby Lindos before a taxi was able to take them to Faliraki and then on to Rhodos. Luckily, they had kept their passports with them when they abandoned their suitcases.
‘We thought we were safe but then the sirens started again. The fire was literally coming over the hill towards us like some f***ing sea creature. I’ve not seen anything like it. We had to run,’ Jodie added.
‘We finally got a taxi to the airport and the driver tried desperately to find us a hotel for a few hours, to charge our phones and get the kids some sleep. We wanted out, and we managed to switch our flight and we landed in Manchester at 7am this morning (Sunday).
‘People are traumatised. A woman was pushing her mum in a wheelchair and they’d lost her dad’s ashes which they’d taken to Rhodes to scatter. Another girl had family unable to get on the boats and phones weren’t charged so no idea if they were safe.
‘The people of Rhodes are the heroes here. The boat guys, the guy handing out towels on the beach to protect my babies from the smoke, the free cold drinks when we got off the boat, the bus that stopped in Lardos, the taxi driver in Rhodos, Chris – our amazing taxi driver from the previous night, his local knowledge and reassuring voice notes were a game changer.’
Up to 10,000 Britons are estimated to be on fire-ravaged Rhodes, with repatriation flights to rescue holidaymakers landing back in the UK.
It comes as travel operator Tui confirmed holidaymakers returned to the UK on ‘three dedicated flights’ overnight, with plans to bring more back ‘as soon as possible’ in place.
Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell said it is ‘peak holiday season’, with between 7,000 and 10,000 Britons estimated to be on the island.
Kim and Angela Engelhart, from Germany, wait for departing planes at Rhodes Airport today
Exhausted holiday makers look at Rhodes Airport departures board at 00.31am this morning
He told Times Radio: ‘What we’re telling people to do is to keep in touch with their tourist company, and that is the right advice.’
He added: ‘There were only 10 free beds on the whole island when I asked yesterday. But we think that something like 1,000 beds may well come back on stream today as others don’t now come and therefore more beds are available.’
Airline easyJet will operate two flights totalling 421 seats on Monday and a third on Tuesday, in addition to its nine scheduled flights to the Greek island.
Meanwhile, a Foreign Office spokesman confirmed a Rapid Deployment Team has arrived on Rhodes to support travel operators in bringing Britons home.
The wildfire had been confined to the island’s mountainous centre but, aided by winds, very high temperatures and dry conditions, it spread towards the coast on the island’s central-eastern side.
Helen Tonks, a mother-of-six from Cheshire, said she was flown into a ‘living nightmare’ by Tui at 11pm on Saturday and discovered her hotel had been closed.
She told The Sun newspaper: ‘We landed and were told, ‘Sorry, you can’t go to your hotel – it’s burned down’.
‘We had no idea the fires were this bad or as close to the hotels as they were. Tui said nothing, not even when our flight was delayed. Even the captain’s chat on the plane was upbeat. We would never have come if we had known.’
Some families were told to stay put where they were in Rhodes but decided to flee on foot
A couple sleep on the airport floor in Rhodes as rescue flights head for the Greek island
Families sleep and play on the floor of Rhodes airport as they wait for a rescue flight
Tourists hoping to be evacuated found any space that they could to sleep at Rhodes Airport
Dan Jones, a sports teacher from Torquay, had to climb on to a fishing trawler with his sons on Saturday night, describing it as ‘the scariest moment’ in his life and adding: ‘What brave boys.’
Ian Wakefield told Times Radio he spent the night on a school playground in Faliraki after being moved from his hotel in Pefki.
Nursery worker Vicky Morris, 34, from Cheltenham, told The Sun her four-year-old daughter Cassie Bell asked: ‘Are we going to die, Mummy?’
An easyJet spokeswoman said it was doing ‘all it can’ to help customers in Rhodes and invited those due to travel to or from the island until Saturday to change the date for free.
LIVEBLOG Greece wildfires LIVE: Corfu and Rhodes burn as thousands of desperate tourists are evacuated to rescue flights
A Tui spokeswoman said the firm’s ‘main priority’ is customers’ safety and its staff are doing ‘all they can’ to help those affected by the fires.
The firm later said: ‘We appreciate how distressing and difficult it’s been for those who have been evacuated and ask that they continue to follow the advice of the local authorities and keep in touch with the Tui reps who are present in all evacuation centres. Our teams will be contacting customers with any updates as soon as they can.
‘We have cancelled all outbound flights to Rhodes up to and including Tuesday, and passengers due to travel on these flights will receive full refunds.
‘Passengers due to travel on Wednesday will be offered a fee-free amend to another holiday or the option to cancel for a full refund. We are still operating flights to bring those customers currently on holiday elsewhere in Rhodes home as planned.’
Mr Mitchell, asked why the Government is not telling people not to go to the island, said: ‘It’s important to remember that only 10% of the island is affected by these fires. And therefore it is the tourist companies and the holiday experts who are best placed to give guidance on whether or not a family or individual’s holidays are going to be ruined by these events.’
Asked on LBC about reports representatives of some holiday companies operating on Rhodes ‘seem to have gone missing’, Mr Mitchell said: ‘Well that is a deplorable state of affairs and obviously we will be investigating all of that.’
However, he suggested there are no evacuations taking place on the Greek island of Corfu amid reports 2,000 people were being evacuated.
He told BBC Breakfast at 7.40am: ‘I can tell you that the information I had one minute before this interview started is that there are not any evacuations from Corfu. There had been movement of people overnight within Corfu but this morning they have been sent back to their earlier accommodation.
‘So I hope the situation is a little better and more stable than your reports suggests.’
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